No politics, no Popery and above all no T-shirts

What is it with footballers and T-shirts? Down the years this simple garment has caused almost as much aggravation as oil. We've had Paul Tait of Birmingham City censured for his "City Shit On The Villa" T-shirt, Robbie Fowler admonished by Fifa for revealing a T-shirt supporting sacked dockworkers, Lee Clark forced to leave Sunderland after being photographed wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan "Sad Mackem Bastards" and countless others booked just for the raw thrill of taking off their jerseys to reveal an undergarment bearing a picture of a newborn infant, or a birthday greeting to a loved one.

T-shirts were once again at the forefront of trouble last weekend. The Celtic keeper Artur Boruc took things a stage further by unveiling a T-shirt bearing the message "God Bless The Pope". Boruc is likely to find himself investigated by Fifa over this matter because football's ruling bodies take a dim view of the displaying of political or religious messages in football grounds.

During the 2000 European Championship I found myself sitting in the press area at the Philips Stadion in Eindhoven watching Sweden play out a 0-0 draw with Turkey. It was muted affair. The loudest sound to be heard in the stadium came from a pair of large, sad-eyed Romanian journalists sitting beside me who spent the first 20 minutes of the first half flicking through the British tabloids and murmuring approvingly to each other whenever they came across a picture of Pamela Anderson.

Just before half-time, however, there was a minor kerfuffle and when I turned to look around various men in suits with walkie-talkies were pointing in my direction. I found this rather alarming as throughout my professional life I have lived in fear that one day I would be unmasked as an impostor; that I would feel a hand on my shoulder and hear a firm voice announce, "So, we have you at last. For years you have been getting into football matches free by posing as a journalist when in fact you are just a silly tosser."

One of the group, a burly Scandinavian in a blazer with military buttons, tripped down the steps and leant over the Romanians. "You are English?" he asked. I confirmed that I was, adding hastily that I was fully accredited and wholeheartedly condemned any of my fellow countrymen who had been throwing wire chairs and making "come on and have a go" gestures at Belgian police, or indeed any other of my nation's many appalling crimes.

The man waved aside my apologies as if the reconquest of the Sudan, the Munich agreement and 30 years of A Question of Sport were minor matters. He introduced himself as a Uefa security official. "I want you to tell me," he said pointing down to the other end of the stadium, "about this banner". I followed his finger. On one of the stands, among the painted sheets trumpeting the arrival of M-Block Fanatics 101% Luxembourg and Norwich City On A Trip, was a Northern Ireland flag. "Is it political?" the Uefa man asked.

Like many Englishmen I tend to tiptoe around anything to do with Northern Ireland, knowing that whatever I say about it will likely end up with lots of very angry people shouting at me. "Mmm," I said, "well, now, that would depend, I suppose."

"Depend?" the security man said.

"Yes," I said. "I mean, if the person displaying it is from Northern Ireland then it is, arguably, just a national flag. However, if the person displaying it is from England, then... who knows? Anyway," I said in attempt to shift the topic, "Fifa and Uefa also ban religious banners, don't they? So where does that leave the Cross of Saint George and the Cross of Saint Andrew, which, to judge by their names, are religious in nature?"

The Uefa man plainly had no interest in this debate even though it was - unbelievably - much less tedious than watching Kaya Suat and Johan Mjallby kicking one another. "So you don't believe it is political?" he asked.

"That would depend," I told the security man, "on what you mean by political." The Uefa man studied me for a moment. "I think, we will leave it for now, but continue to monitor the situation closely," he said eventually. I said that in my opinion that was the wisest course to take.

When it comes to the T-shirts, a personal view is that players should simply be forbidden from wearing them altogether. They didn't used to bother with such things in the past. In the 1970s wearing a vest of any description under a football shirt was seen as a sign of feebleness (or being European, which was considered much the same thing back then). It was one step up from producing a letter from your Mam asking for you to be excused from the afternoon's game because "The forecast is far from good and he has a weak chest". This was, of course, all macho nonsense, but a return to such values would certainly save a lot of bother.

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